The Left Sharks were nominated for gif-fing their way to abortion funding because "It's sharks, come on." The Left Sharks are bowling in Houston with one of Lilith Fund's 5 events. Like they say, "if you mess with Texas, you get the sharks."

They're almost half-way to their $600 goal. Why don't you help them out and turn them from angry sharks to happy, dancing sharks?

Vanessa was nominated for her work orgniazing in Richmond. She works on racial justice and intersectional issues, she just graduated medical school, she's studying for her OB/GYN residency, and her teammates say she's constantly texting them to remind them it's Bowl-a-Thon season. "Please recognize this human being as the bad ass she is. Seriously, this woman does not give up." Sounds like a bad ass to us, too!

This past Tuesday, staff members of the National Network of Abortion Funds were proud to phone bank for earned sick time in Massachusetts as part of the Yes On 4 campaign, in partnership with the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), a member of Raise Up Massachusetts.

As abortion fund activists, we know that earned sick time is a crucial part of economic justice and therefore reproductive justice. A woman should be able to take time off work to take care of herself and her family without fear of losing her job. This helps enable her to access reproductive health care, including abortion care, and also to care for the children she already has.

September 30, 2014 marks the 38th anniversary of the Hyde Amendment, which passed in 1976. A direct response to the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion just three years earlier, the Hyde Amendment was the first of many restrictions on abortion, and denied Medicaid patients the right to an abortion. Later restrictions followed: federal employees, U.S. military personnel and their families, Peace Corps volunteers, Indian Health Service recipients, federal prisoners, and people with disabilities covered by Medicare — all denied abortion coverage.

The intent of the Hyde Amendment is to make it more difficult for low-income women to get the abortions they need. It is the backdrop to all abortion funds. It is the backdrop to our stories.

While this September marks another sad anniversary of the restrictive Hyde Amendment, ACCESS Women’s Health Justice in Oakland, Calilfornia will be doing what they've been doing since 1993: helping women get the care they need without delay. From a small group of volunteer clinic escorts, this fund has grown into a national reproductive justice powerhouse.

Last week, Operation Rescue — the organization that inspired Dr. Tiller's assassin — descended on New Orleans for a week-long siege, swarming abortion clinics and threatening abortion providers at their homes. This siege is motivated by the construction of a new abortion clinic that will meet the latest restrictive requirements passed by Louisiana's legislature this summer. In response to these aggressive attacks on clinics. patients, and providers, the New Orleans Abortion Fund (spotlighted on our site this month) mobilized with local allies to organize peaceful counter-protests and to raise funds to directly aid women in need of funding by orchestrating a Pledge-A-Protester campaign.

"Together with Feminist Majority Foundation and other members of the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, the New Orleans Abortion Fund has been on the forefront of training up clinic escorts and legal observers in preparation for this week. We have been out in front of clinics or physicians’ homes since the weekend," says NOAF's Amy Irvin.